We bought Marci a new car!

Since I got my Ioniq 5 in November, it's been great. No gas stations, charging at home, all the benefits. Marci started asking about EVs so we drove a few in the spring. She checked out an ID.4 and a Nissan Ariya. She drove my car for the first time and that was that.

We let it go for a month or two, but then a couple things happened: gas prices went close to $6.00. Luckily the Alltrack is regular gasoline, but even so, it was costing us about $75-80 to fill that car up. Weekends we'd take the I5 out, so gas went longer, but it was still a bit of a shock. The AT was just paid off, so we were willing to ride it out.

Riley's Fiat 500 was paid off last year as well and his plan after graduating was to sell it for $2k or whatever he could get for it. It had pretty low miles, but the car was getting rough: trunk door wouldn't open, interior was a bit messy, stuff like that. We had just put new tires on it in February or something, so it was OK and maybe he could get a few bucks for it.

Until he got backed into in early May and the car was considered totaled. RIP F500.

If there was something good that came out of that, it was we got paid way more for the car than I expected, even more than if we sold it, and even a good chunk after they kept my deductible. They did us a favor by relieving us from having to sell it.

So then we had to make a decision. Do we let Marci keep driving the AT, give Riley my Jetta (also paid off) and move on with our lives? The Jetta had been at Mom's house for the past 6 months or so and needed some resurrecting. I think Riley would be happy with either, but in the end, we decided to give him the Alltrack and sit on the Jetta as a trade-in of some sort.

All during this time, Marci was researching a car for herself. She wanted an EV smaller than mine, but with AWD. Trouble was, anything crossover sized wouldn't have AWD, so she looked at the Kia Niro EV, which was just about the same size as her Alltrack. We drove a couple and she was pretty much sold on it. Price was decent and she could get the Wave trim, which was top of the line.

As she looked more, she found a Hyundai Kona EV Limited down at a small EV dealer in Renton. We ended up going there for a look and that was pretty much that. It was the chalk/cyber gray that I liked for the Ioniq. It had the Limited trim, with the 360 cameras, heated/vented seats, heated steering wheel. No HUD, which she actually liked on the Niro, but since she doesn't roll with normally, not something she'd miss.

We drove it around town and she seemed to like it. It was in really great shape and only had 7500 miles, 2024 MY. We had Genny, the salesperson/co-owner of the dealership, run financing for us and within a day or so, we were approved. I sent over pix of the Jetta and they offered me $2700 for it, before asking if the windshield had a crack, at which point they lowered it to $2500, which, considering its condition, I thought was fair, especially sight unseen.

Goodbye old friend!

We agreed to terms and picked it up last a week ago Saturday. Marci drove it around and got used to it over the next couple days, until I saw a weird thing on the rear right tire. Turns out the previous owner must have hit a nail and got the tire plugged. Problem was it was causing teh sidewall to bulge also. And since the dealership missed it, they agreed to replace it for us. So we picked it up yesterday, a week or so after getting it and now it's back.

Marci in the new car!

Driving it home!

Lots of bells and whistles on this car. Same as mine. I think she'll love it as much as I love the I5. Just need to finish setting up the Bluelink stuff so she can use her phone to cool/heat it, etc. And then when she charges, she's gonna love that! No more gas stations! And Riley's coming home tomorrow to pick up the Alltrack. Lots of changes, all for the better.

Forest Ray West Coast Tour Day 3 6/30/2023

Maybe I can do this with less words. Typing on the Bay Bridge (?) heading into San Francisco. I see the Golden Gate bridge out the window to my right.

Yesterday we got up in Gregorio's house and the fellas got showers while I abstained since I had one the day before. We jumped in the van and went to the Mission district for breakfast/lunch. I made a poor move and bought coffee and a chocolate croissant at a coffee shop. And then I saw the donut shop next door, so shortly after, I went in and bought an apple fritter and a maple bar. So delicious!

Donut shop is literally behind me and I missed it.

Excelsior Coffee.

Ducks.

We walked into some shops on that strip, including a Chinese trinket shop. So many things in there and Simon bought himself a handful of vintage post cards for $1.00. We then found a post office to mail them out to his girl.

Simon buying post cards.

Peter has been obsessed with the grocery store, Sprouts, because you can get a sandwich for $5.99. He's been talking about it for the last several days, so we found a Sprouts, went in, and bought a turkey sandwich for $5.99. Not bad.

Eventually, we went to the Haight area of SF, where we had booked a last minute gig at the Milk Bar. I drove the Behemoth, which wasn't too bad, just a little floaty on the steering. I parked in front of the place and we loaded in. The room itself was long and had a wide, but shallow stage at the end. Jumped in the bathroom to get washed up and prayed I didn't have to do anything but pee and/or wash my hands.

No privacy bathroom.

Since we were there at around 4 and didn't actually play until after 10, we sort of just hung out. I did some job hunting/applying; we walked across the street to Amoeba Records (that place is huge!); we walked down the street to a park and had some photos taken by a member of the other band playing that night; we talked to a street vendor that was next to the club. There was a lot of time to kill, that's for sure.

Friday nights at the Milk Bar include a free comedy hour. As showtime drew near, people started coming in. There were a bunch of attractive women coming in, so we got our hopes up a little. And then the comedy started. A kid jumped on stage, all of 23 years old, and gave a really lame performance. It takes balls to do that and so I give him credit for that, but it seemed that at 23, he didn't have the stories to tell, so instead, he did jokes with bad punchlines. It was rough. An Indian kid followed the first kid, and that was pretty bad as well. They were young and likely quite new to the scene.

The next few comics were actually pretty good. I sat in the crowd and listened to the rest and left a small tip (though I think I may have inadvertently dropped a $10 into the bucket :/) from the cash I had to buy donuts with. Sort of bummed about that!

Peter's friends Matt and Richard came up from Big Sur to open the show. Peter booked the show 2 days ago when the place we were supposed to play canceled on us. So with the late booking and 0 promotion, we didn't know what to expect.

Unfortunately, though there was a nice crowd for the comics, most of them moved to the bar area when Matt and Richard started playing. They set up about 20 lamps all around the stage and played some pretty basic melodic rock. Not bad, but nothing super exciting.

When they finished, we jumped on stage to all of 4 people. Two of them were Matt and Richard, so really, two people, and I'm told they were two of the comics. So we pretty much just treated it like practice on a stage. Earlier in the night, when we finished setting up, we practiced a few covers, including Take It Easy, by the Eagles, which I'd never played before. Fortunately I've heard it a million times, so I hacked my way through it just fine. We also did some Neil Young and country covers, which are pretty easy, and we were able to work through those on stage as well.

Performance-wise, I felt pretty good. A few more mistakes here and there, but I'm realizing I need to trust my knowledge of the tunes and not to key off of vocal cues that aren't leading to where I think they're leading. Peter is not changing the song structures on the fly, though his vocals may sound that way. The stage was pretty tight, too. We set up horizontally due to the previously mentioned shallow stage. Miles was in the corner, then Peter, me and Simon. We were tucked in there pretty tight, but it wasn't much of a physical show.

The night ended and we packed out and headed to Albany, about 20 minutes away, to stay with Peter's old mate, Kyle. He had a small apartment where we crashed in his tiny living room. I got the couch, so there's that. A place to stay and a super nice host, it's all good.

Quick notes:

• Lots of driverless cars in SF. I don't think they're mapping the place, but training their driving AI instead. It's sort of weird to see cars w/o drivers.
• Speaking of cars, I'm seeing Fiat 500s everywhere. It only matters because we have a Fiat 500.
• SF was COLD yesterday. Sunny and windy, in the mid 50s, with mist/fog coming in at night. I didn't bring a jacket, but luckily have a hoodie with me.
• The Mission district was cool, sort of a multi-cultural area, reminded me of the ID at home. I busted out my Mandarin with the old lady that ran the donut shop. We got to talk a little bit; she said I didn't appear to be Chinese.
• Sleeping good enough at night, but waking late is weird. I feel like I should be up earlier, but the young bucks sleep late. With nowhere to be until later in the day, I guess it's OK.
• Diet was not great. I ate the following: Costco protein bar, chocolate croissant and 2 donuts, half a turkey sandwich at lunch, the other half for dinner and another protein bar. Let's see if I can do better today.

Next up: Make Out Room in San Francisco. Hopefully we have some people in the crowd tonight.